Tag: responsive web design

Would you like free and unbiased advice on how to actually BUY a website? from someone who sells them?

I recently wrote a document aimed at IOD (Institute of Directors) of which I am a member, that goes into detail about how to do this. A step by step guide on ensuring you get the best website for your business, irrespective of what you do.

Sound a silly idea?

I have over 23 years experience in advising clients companies on what sort of website they need, want or will need in the future. Let’s face it, buying a corporate website is often a traumatic experience for the buyer. The task is often given to a “young” web savvy person, the in house IT folks, or businesses sometimes use an outside contractor to do the work for them.

However the person that SHOULD be involved is often not. A Director or Owner.

Most Directors feel they do not either have the time, or more often the willingness to get involved with such a purchase. If I can put it like this: If you were to buy a, lets say; vehicle, some machinery, a new factory or Office for your company you, as a Director would definitely be involved.

Why?

Because you know about those subjects and therefore feel comfortable when buying them. But how comfortable do you feel when thinking about your company’s website?

The document I have written gives you simple pointers, and is un-biased, i.e. it doesn’t sell Clickingmad. It just provides advice on what to do, when to do it and what I think are some good rational reasons why Directors should get involved in purchasing something that not only represents their company, but also can be a major factor in the marketing, client communications and indeed potential success of your own business.

I paste an extract here:

“Decide what the purpose of the website is. Many websites have been created without a good reason for their existence. Look at the following list and tick off those points that you want your website to achieve. I want my website to:

Be a good advertisement for my company

Sell my products and/or services online

Encourage enquiries in to my company for what we do

Act as a brochure or reference to assist my existing sales operation

Tell customers when we are open and closed

Show our customers where we are

Give our customer examples of what we do

Explain we are very good at making/providing/supporting what we sell

Explain how our customers can contact us in various ways

Give the website visitor a good idea of what makes us special and why they should buy from us

Tell visitors about the history of our company

Tell visitors about the staff in my business

We want visitors to see images & videos about my company’s products and services

I want visitors to download documents about my company, or my products and services

We want my customer to connect with us using social media

The above list is not exhaustive, but should be a good starting point. TIP: Give this table to your staff and see what they think.

I will be posting more excerpts of the contents over the coming weeks. If you would like your own copy of this free and unbiased document then email me at shaun@clickingmad.com and I will send it to you. No strings and no spam.

Google made its latest major algorithm change on April 21st this year and will now be using mobile friendliness to rank websites shown in searches on mobile devices.

Although we have been advising our clients on this subject for a while now this is the first time that it has been officially imposed by Google and can really make a difference to your Google ranking. For some companies, this big change has seen a fall in search engine driven traffic to their website and ultimately their online enquiries.

This shift has cemented what we have always advised our clients about – when you have a website, it is mandatory to keep up with the latest technology and trends to make sure your online activities don’t affect your business adversely. Quite to the contrary, this major change in Google policy of displaying websites presents an opportunity to businesses that are willing to grasp it properly and use it to their advantage – getting more traffic from their mobile device friendly website.

HOWEVER, not all is lost, majority of existing websites can be made responsive without having to have a whole new website developed at a huge cost.

Your website is at risk of not being found in Google’s search results on mobile devices. As of April 21st, Google is implementing some new algorithms which will expand their use of “mobile-friendliness” as a ranking signal when searching on a mobile device. This change means that websites that are not mobile friendly will not appear high in the Google search results page when a user is searching on their mobile phone or tablet.

Due to the ever increasing use of mobile devices, it is essential for the performance of your website that it is mobile friendly and is something that should be seriously considered.

We can help you to meet the mobile-friendliness standards by building you a fully responsive template for your website, which will tick all of the boxes for Google, and therefore strengthen your search results rankings.

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